The patents in Apple's upcoming court battle involve the ability to simply tap a phone number to make a call, unified search for your device and the Web, data syncing, slide-to-unlock and autocomplete.

Mueller doesn't mince his words — he thinks that the number Apple is asking for is excessive:

$40 per unit. For five software patents. Give me a break. Reality distortion would be a total understatement for this.

And Apple isn't the only one hoping to get money out of the latest case: Samsung is hoping to charge Apple a royalty of 2.4% of all iPhone sales for the use of patents that are considered essential for certain wireless standards.

That's an awful lot closer to the going rate in the industry, and even then, Mueller suggests that it's still a high number for "standards-essential" patents. But Apple wants nearly three times that for far fewer patents that have much less to do with the fundamental ability to use a device.

As Mueller puts it, Apple's case for why it should get so much for so little is "an objective insanity, and I say so even though Judge Koh allowed Apple to present it to the jury."